


Small Things

by Big_Geek



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Baby Holt number three, Childbirth, F/M, Medically based, Pregnancy, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 07:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14075553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_Geek/pseuds/Big_Geek
Summary: Headcanon: Colleen Holt was pregnant when Sam left for Kerberos. She and Pidge had a fight before leaving for the garrison and neither she nor Matt have any idea that they have a baby sibling on Earth.





	Small Things

“Don’t you dare open that door, Katie!”

“I’m going and you can’t stop me”

“I am your mother, and you listen to me. Do not open that door!”

“I’m going because I WANT TO FIND DAD AND MATT, unlike you!” Katie spat back. Guilt instantly pooled into her hazel eyes as Colleen recoiled like the words were a physical slap to the face.

Tears stung her eyes, both of their eyes.

“I’m sorry, mom” Kaite whispered, her voice trembling after a moment of suffocating silence. Colleen continued to stare at the floor boards, trying to blink away to rush of tears threatening her vision. Trying to find other word to bring her daughter back. 

Light footsteps met her ears, then the distinct sound of a door opening and closing. Katie didn’t stare back at her trembling mother like she would have hoped. Katie left. Off to the Garrison. Likely never going to come back to her grieving mother.

Colleen was alone.

No husband. No son. No daughter. Two in one hit.

But she wasn’t entirely alone. So to speak.

But she wasn’t going to think about, she just lost her daughter too.

***

Over the course of several weeks, Colleen tried to contact her daughter. Well, that was before she discovered the dead phone of the bedside table. She even tried by letter. She doesn’t even know if Katie ever received them.

She hasn’t written back.

Colleen laid on her bed, a thing she hasn’t done for years. She had no children to care for and no husband to love. Even been put (by her boss) on personal leave after the Kerberos failure. To let her grieve.

Yeah, she’ll grieve. Grieve the father that her child will never meet, and Matthew and Katie to never bond with. To learn with.

Her mind wandered back to the test that now, laid currently in her bathroom drawer. The one she had taken almost two weeks ago. A week before the announcement of the Kerberos failure.

The overwhelm dread, fear and joy rolled into a punch to her stomach, as that little plus sign glared at her, taunting her. 

Before Katie left, she often wondered how she was going to break it to her. Over a now familiar silent dinner? blurting it out? A present? The problem was, she isn’t entirely sure that she should be happy, happy to bring life into this world, this fucked up, cruel world. 

Every time she stared at her chest, where her breast had definitely stared to lactate. She had forgotten how much it hurt. Colleen thought of her husband. The night before Kerberos, definitely out of the kids hearing range and the goodbye. The last goodbye. 

Her hand moved subconsciously over her stomach, like she had down so many times during her previous pregnancies. 

“You’re not alone,” Colleen whispered, rubbing circles around the approximate location of her uterus, blinking away tears that lined her eyes. 

“I’ll protect you”

God. 

She was too old for this. 

***

“Well your baby is healthy, look!” The cheerful voice of the obstetrician pointed out, rolling the probe device over the blue gel on the pudgy stomach. “Ten little toes and ten little fingers! He is one healthy three month old fetus”

Colleen smiled at the image. The black and white image of her third child in front of her. Even after experiencing this so many times before, she still felt like crying. For some other points included. 

She imagined the warmth of her husband holding her hand. The talking of Matthew talking excited up against the head of her bed and Katie looking on in awe at the foot. 

“Are you ready to hear the heartbeat?” She asked, her fingers ready to press the button on the keyboard in front of her. To allow the beating of a tiny heart ring in the silent room. 

Colleen nodded. Afraid to talk, only to cry ugly in front of someone she barely knew. 

“Alright” The woman mumbled herself. 

The click of nails against the keyboard then, 

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep

The fast, tiny beating heart echoed through the room. 

Colleen tried to hide the tear that cascaded down her temple. 

***

Colleen choked on her cereal as the telltale fluttering in her stomach swished around. She gagged and she sputtered to free her air way into the sink of her kitchen.

When fresh air flooded her lungs she stared down the biggest shirt she owned, the small bump that was almost indistinguishable, protruding outwards. 

She hadn’t felt that feeling in a long time. The familiar feeling of life, and joy flooded through her.

They were kicking.

***

“James? No” Colleen crossed off the note of paper in her hand as she laid on the couch, a bowl of chips held by the ever growing baby. Cheerios. She had been craving Cheerios. 

“Avery? Nah” She munched on a cheerio, the pen in her hand tapping against her breast. 

She remembered doing this with Matt. She would sit in bed, curl up with Samuel, listing names. 

“Jason? Nope” Another one off the list. Colleen huffed as her list became shorter. She needed a boy and a girl name, she rather wait to learn the sex of her child than know months before. Whats the fun in that?

Then again, she needed one. She was already in her third trimester and the kicks were starting to become painful. It was always a kicking her bladder, another reason for her sleep deprivation. 

“Samantha?” Colleen stared at the name, so similar to Samuel. She swallowed, “Plausible”

***

“-Garrett, Pidge Gunderson and Lance McClain were announced missing this morning by Arizona’s Aerospace exploration school Galaxy Garrison. Just a year after the failure of the Kerberos incident. The school states,-”

Colleen stared at the screen, more on the image of her daughter. Short hair, the style that was cut moments before she left for the Garrison. Katie looked so much like Matt. 

A sob broke through the confines of her smooth lips, her arm cradling her stomach that was in the later stages of pregnancy. She looked ready to, as they say, ready to pop. 

Tears cascaded down her face, nothing stopping the torrent of it. 

Colleen Holt was well and truly alone. 

But the kick to her bladder suggested otherwise. 

***

She tried to image the nurse’s hand was her husband’s, the familiar warmth that was flood her heart every time he did so, every callous, every scar. Colleen could feel the process many women called the “ring of fire”. She groaned as her obstetrician checked her netherlands. The small comforts from the nurse beside her whispered in her ear. 

They asked if she would like to call someone. She said, no. 

She had no one.

“Okay, Colleen. I can see the head. I need you to push for me, yeah?” Her soft voice instructed from the foot of the bed, a blonde, messy bun in view. Colleen nodded tensely, it felt like it was going to rip into pieces. 

…It was not the first time. Matthew and his massive head. She needed stitches.

Ten hours ago, her first thought Braxton hicks revealed itself into actual labour. Granted, she freaked. She didn’t have her husband at her side like the other two times. 

Colleen drove herself to the hospital, trying to smother the nerves that were swirling in her stomach, or was it the baby kicking her vital organs. 

Seven hours in and the midwife had to break her water, to speed up the process. She was stuck at the sixth dilation. 

Her body hurt as she bared down, screaming all the while. She had forgotten what this felt like. Then again, she was fifteen years younger, and generally forgot the whole six hour torture. 

“You are doing fantastic Colleen, one more time”

She felt something foreign and warm pass through the burning of her muscles and skin, up against the sweet relief of cool gloved hands. 

“The heads out, one more time”

Over the beating her heart, and wheezing breaths, she heard the cry. The mothers instantly ran too, instant protected. Warmth flooded her heart, an instinct inside to run and find her baby. 

Her head met the cushioned bed pillow and watched as the midwives weighed, checked and cleaned the baby, her baby. It was surreal. It was almost fantasy. 

The nurse beside her wiped her brow with a cool cloth as she watched them bring the swaddled infant. So red, and alien looking. Like Matt and Katie were. 

Colleen’s heart grew as they laid her baby on her chest, it’s cried stopping to whimpering, her tired arms wrapping around the bundle of blankets. Pink blankets. 

“It’s a girl. Congratulations” 

Colleen sobbed. 

Samantha Holt. 

Third child, second daughter of Colleen and Samuel Holt, little sister of Katie and Matthew Holt. 

She was a Holt. She was gong to rule the world. 

***

“Congratulations Mrs. Holt” Colleen jumped at the voice, so trained and dangerous. 

“Iverson” She sneered in greeting on her bed, Samantha curled in her arms. She just attempted breastfeeding and glad to say that Samantha was a Matthew, she ate. 

The nurses were proud of her too. 

Iverson stalked in, his aura screaming dangerous, her instincts running; protect Samantha. She griped her harder, but not enough to hurt her. 

“I see that you’ve given birth”

Colleen snorted, with no real humour behind it. 

“No shit Sherlock.”

They stared at each other in silence, Colleen loosening her hold on her daughter when she began to squirm in discomfort. Colleen sighed, frustration marring the sound. She wanted him gone, why the fuck was he here. Much less in a hospital. She thought he just walked around the world he knew as Galaxy Garrison. 

“Are you going to take this one away too?” She asked, anger imminent on her face. Iverson scoffed, that was something she didn’t think was in his “programming”.

“No. I wanted to say congratulations, Mrs. Holt. A child without a father in the picture-”

“A father you took” She cut in, adjusting her hold on her daughter. “Including my son and daughter. Where the fuck are they? Where is my family?” She held back to stinging of her eyes, she needed answers. “I wondered why Katie thought you were distrustful, and now I know why. You took my daughter away too. I will ask you this once more time; Where the fucking hell are they?”

She was oddly calm in front of the storm raging in her mind. 

Iverson was silent. She knew. She knew that he was determining what to tell her. In Katie words she once scolded her for, “So motherfucking distrustful”. 

“You might as well tell me everything, Iverson. I know you are hiding things from the public. Your Kerberos excuse was fucking shit and you took my daughter from me. So Mitchell Iverson, I know you know what the ever living fuck happened to them. So tell me, where are they? What happened? What’s the possibility from them to be alive?”

These last few minutes was the most she’s ever sworn and cursed in her life. 

Iverson stayed silent, staring at her with calculating eyes. Colleen gulped her anxieties and fears, oh god, please tell me if they are alive. 

“I’m sorry, it’s confident-”

“Don’t confidential me, asshole. Just tell me. It’s a fucking yes or no answer”

Iverson quieted. She knows he’s trying to find a way to escape. 

“No”

The world stopped on it’s hinges. Numbness spread through her bones. No. Not true. 

“No? So everything Katie used her time with, was a waste”

“I’m afraid so”

Samantha whimpered in her arms, if sensing her mothers distress and emotional pain. 

“I will say this again, I’m sorry for your loss”

Iverson left as quickly as he came, leaving the mother on the hospitable bed in despair. Before she asked about bodies.

***

“And this is the kitchen” Colleen finished the tour of the house. Showing the baby in her arms the house. Samantha’s wide hazel eyes showing curiosity. Sure she was probably seeing a bunch of blurring images, but who cares. 

She moved around the wall and up the stairs to her bedroom. She was so tired. And the bleeding still hadn’t stopped yet, sure it was lighter but that was okay. The problem was having to buy those maternity pads, they were so expensive. 

Colleen sagged in relief at the sight of her bed when she she open the door, still unmade from when the worrisome “Braxton hicks” started. But she didn’t care. It was a bed, her bed. God, she was so tired. 

She moved towards the basinet at the wall. She had a friend build that for her, and it was beautiful. 

With a hand behind Samantha’s head and another under her back she gently laid her onto the firm mattress. Wide eyes stared back at her. She looked almost identical to Katie, with lighter hair than her siblings. 

She smiled and turned towards her bed and did something she hadn’t done since she was twenty. She flopped onto it, tugging the sheets closer to her body. This was the life. 

Samantha wailed. 

Colleen huffed into her sheets, she was hungry, and tried, so so tired. 

***

“Say cheese!” Colleen had her phone on camera mode, trying to take picture of Samantha crawling. She started getting up on two months ago but didn’t get anywhere. Sure, she was doing later than other infants her age, but it was the true Holt way. No need for physical activity, we only need our brains. 

Samantha smiled and laughed making grab for phone. She teased her with it. In reach, not in reach, in reach, not in reach. She remembered the first time she saw Samantha smile, she did it when her hip caught onto the side of the tabletop in the living room. Laughing at other peoples pain, the Katie way. 

The doorbell rang, the sound echoing through the two story house. 

“You wait here, alright. Mommy will be back” She said to the infant on the blanket in a purple onesie. Colleen got onto her knees and onto her legs. She could leave her here, it wasn’t like she could move far away in two minutes.

It once took Matthew five minutes to reach two metres. it was rather anti climatic. he was always the one for dramatics. 

The doorbell rang again, annoyance rung through her brain. 

“Just wait,” she yelled from the hallway, “I’m coming”. Her eyes caught onto the two figures in frosted door window. What the fuck now. It’s those neighbours, again. She can’t control Samantha. Well sorry that she is too loud. Jesus, have some children and learn some things. 

She hand moved unlocked the door.

“Look I have no control over her, so how about-” The word drifted off at the two figures. No. No, they were not the neighbours. 

She didn’t see the broad chest of Iverson first but the face she never forgot behind him. She could see his nerves from a mile away. He was scared, nervous, of what she would do. Colleen swallowed past the lump in her throat, hoping that it would move. it didn’t. 

“Iverson,” She started, still staring at the man behind him. “I wasn’t drugged, right” Her voiced sounded unsure, but she knew what she was seeing was real. 

“No, Mrs. Holt”

The man gulped, gripping the alien looking backpack at his side. He looked like he aged years instead of two. 

“Hey, Colly” Hearing his voice is what made her sob. Twin tears fell as Samuel embraced her. 

“I’m here.” She muffled her sob in his chest. He smelled exactly like he did before the Kerberos mission. His very calloused hands grips the side of her face, to make her look at him. Despite the rather new facial hair, he was still the same. 

“Katie and Matthew are alive. Takashi and McClain and Garrett. Everyone is alive.” The sound of her children made her cry harder. It felt like the holes in her heart that only expanded during their absence were slowly filling up. 

Colleen opened her mouth, but nothing came out. But she turned to look over his shoulder the Iverson standing still behind the pair. 

She furrowed her brows and spat, “I hope Kogane takes out your other eye” Lair!

Her shirt became a place for Samuel to smother his laughter in. It felt like there was only just the two of them. Their arms tight around each other, like a cage. Oh, how she missed this. But, damn, he was skinny. She was going to make her meatloaf tonight. 

All she wants now is Katie and Matthew, why they didn’t go with their father? He better explain that. She wanted her children, all three of them. Katie. Matthew. Samantha. 

…Samantha. 

She forgot about the baby!

Wailing from the other room echoed. She could sense Samuel’s confusion like a fish out of water. She didn’t care. She hadn’t felt something like this in years. Horrible scenarios running through her head. The last time was when she lost Katie in the grocery store,

Colleen gently pushed herself out of Samuel’s embrace and power walked to the other room. Another pair of feet following behind her. She knew who it was, who wouldn’t, but she needed her baby. 

She entered the room and relief flooded her veins. Samantha just lost her balance and hit her head. Colleen sighed and went over to pick her up, bouncing her a few times to quiet her sniffles. 

“Colleen?”

She turned to Samuel at the door, with an unreadable expression. Her eyes moved back and fourth from the baby to her husband. Colleen smiled. 

“Sammy, there is a lot to talk about”

***

“Is it set up yet?” Colleen asked from the couch, a two year old Samantha in her lap. At the moment, they were playing some mental game she created. 

Samuel adjusted the satellite attached on the top of a device highly advanced civilisations. He said it was Alteen, or was Altine, something of the like. “Almost”

Colleen hummed and turned back the toddler sitting on her lap. Her light blonde curls pulled up into a ponytail and she started growing into clothing she (luckily) kept from Katie’s childhood. 

Over the course of the one and a half years Samuel had arrived home again, he started building something to radio call this Voltron. All the while spending time her his wife and new daughter, making part of the time he missed. 

He said, apparently, her little Katie was a paladin of and Matthew was associated with. She could barely keep down her excitement, and Samantha could feel it too.

“A-and done” She jumped and moved to sit on one of the dining chair placed in front of the screen, Samantha squirming in her lap. 

The screen blurred, until coming into focus. And her eyes were met with an…alien. Pure white and elf ears. Rather, fantasy like combination. 

“Hello Samuel.” The moment those words escaped from her lips there was an uproar of noise. 

“Sam!”

“Samuel!”

Then two voices she’s waited for, 

“Dad!”

Colleen could already feel the holes of her heart be stitched with closure. 

From the cloud of faces she has seen on the news, the ones she’s been waiting for appeared. 

“Dad!”

She could already feel her eyes sting at the sight of Matt. His hair was longer and had a scar on his face, but the some old Matthew she raised. 

“Dad, Mom!” He screech, rushing towards the screen as a tinier version of him clawed through the crowd of faces. Who, she now realised, is being herded by Takashi out of the room. 

“Mom, Dad.” By the way her face fell at the screen, she knew that she saw Samantha in her lap. And she could see Matthew catching on.

“Who’s the kid?” 

Colleen and Samuel smiled at each other, clasping their hands together out of view.


End file.
